Parental Control and Children’s Internet Safety: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Abstract.

In this paper we assess the threats and risks that children are exposed to as a by-product of their Internet experience. We assess good and bad strategies and practices for increasing children’s online safety, from a technological, legal and ethical point of view, and explore some of the challenges that law, ethos, technology must overcome towards Internet safety for children. For example we pose the question whether a parent could ever become, intentionally or not, a threat source for a child’s privacy loss. At the technical field, we run an experiment that demonstrates why parental control software has a long road ahead in meeting some minimum goals for filtering effectiveness.

Keywords: Children's safety; Internet Safety; Threats, Risks and Countermeasures; Parental Control Software;

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